Nvidia 8400M performance, general discussion

I like running my games at good fps,but what about 1.6?

 

Well, yes, you could run 1.6 on an x3100 at 100fps, just keep turning the settings down until you get your desired frame rates. I'd say probably not CS:S, though, unless you're willing to turn the settings way down.

 

ok,thanks for the advide

 

Will the 8600m-gt be able to run games like,Doom 3,CS:S,Far Cry,CoD 3,Halo2,etc. on all high settings? and will it be able to run crysis?

 

does anyone think it would be worth it to change you laptop for the performance boost of going from a 8600m gs to a 8600m gt. I'm not a hard core pc gamer but i do game a little and want it to look good when i do so or at least run near high settings. I am a college student and i do have a xbox 360 for gaming so its important but not that important if my laptop graphics card in my laptop performs top notch. I'm asking because i really want an Asus F3 but am considering the Dell 1520 for more power.

 

Very pleased to hear STALKER is doing fine!
Thank you, Methodis, for shedding some light on this (dark) issue

 

Yh thx Methodis, theres literally no-one else posting screenshots of games on the 8400M GS!

BTW can you post some more like Half life 2 and Batllefield 2142?

 

I am thinking of buying the M1330 from Dell and anyone here play WoW on this machine?

What is the frame rate at max setting? What is the average framerate does this game get on this machine. I'm sure its pretty good since WoW isnt a taxing game, but just want to make sure before i drop 2g's on it.

Thanks.

 

wow played perfeclty fine on my dell 6000 with a integrated gma950 graphics and considering that the dv2500t plays halo 2 perfecltly fine, with only 64mb video dedicated rather than the m1330's 128mn - you'll be fine.

 

You should get 25-35fps under medium resolution with most settings on high.

 

For the ninth time, World of Warcraft is NOT A GRAPHICS INTENSIVE GAME. I'm gonna make a sticky.

 

WoW can run at 30+ fps with integrated graphics at medium settings

 

I ordered a Dell Inspiron 1520 with Intel 2 Duo T5450 1.6 ghz, 2 gig ram and a Nvidia Geforce 8400M GS (with DX10 :smile: ). I am a moderate gamer and was wondering how well this system will handle DX9 games that are coming out in the future (i.e Brother in Arms: Hells Highway, Call of Duty 4, NHL/Madden 08) as well as DX10 Games coming out in the future (i.e World in Conflict, Alan Wake, and Crysis)?

 

what is the screen size, honeslty I really dont think so... sry

 

The screen is a 15.4 inch.....will any of these games do well!?!

 

You could probably handle the sports games.

As for the others, you may need to play on low / low-med.

 

If your planning to game. you should call dell to change to 8600m. i personally think its a waste to get 8400m in a 15.4 laptop when u have the space for a much better card.

 

i agree....get a geforce 8600M GS ATLEASt, though it is better to get an 8600M GT.............the 8400M GS wont cut it in the future (meaning 2~3 months)

 

That is true. And don't even bother upgrading unless you're getting the 8600mGT. The 8400 GS and GT are pretty much the same cards, and the 8600 GS isn't a viable upograde from the 8400Gt. Make sure you get the 8600mGT for ANY future reliability.

 

dell doesnt have 8600m gs. they only have either x3100, 8400m gs, or 8600m gt. get the 8600m gt for 1520. 8600m gt is in a whole different level compare to 8400m gs as is x3100 to the 8400m gs.

 

So how much better is the 8400M GS (upgrade) than the original GMA X3000? Is there any games (on the list from my 1st post) that the 8400MGS can handle that the X3000 can't?

 

the GMAx3000/3100 are much weaker than the 8400m GS mainly because they are integrated cards while the 8400m GS is dedicated. but no, the GMA will not play any game from your original list, while the 8400m GS just MIGHT have a chance on lowest settings, but i stand by my opinion---that if you plan on playing future games on decent settings, and have a few more dollars to spend, then go with the 8600m GT...

 

they'll be playable, but in low quality, and unless you are choosing games for their respective stories I'd suggest its not worth playing a game at low quality.

 

it also depends on the game its self...
for example,
Blacksite Area 51 might have a better chance of running decently on the 8400M, whle Crysis might struggle (disclaimer: this is just speculation and is not based on ANY solid facts, because both these games are not yet released)
and it also depends on user preference....if you are ok with playing crysis on 800x600 with low-lowmid settings, then sure get the cheap card....but if you want to future proof your card as long as its the best in its class (15.4 inch) then go with the 8600M GT, it will last you until the next big thing comes out in 15.4 inch laptops.... though you can always go for a DTR if your budget allows

 

wow great advice guys, ya i'm a student on quite a budget but i'll try to upgrade to a 8600M GT (it's only 100 bucks more) An option I think (correct me if I'm wrong) would be to buy the 8400M GS and then buy the 8600M GT later in a few months from Dell spare parts and switch them myself. How long do you think these cards will be classified mainstream for?

 

I'm pretty sure you'd find yourself having a hard time switching graphics cards by your lonesome.

 

You could do that, but Dell would almost certaintly try to void your warranty if you did, and you would run a very real risk of screwing your machine up if you're not experienced at laptop upgrades.

 

I'll second that.

You have to take out a lot of components to get to the assembly, so its a rather delicate procedure. You can see for yourself through this link that dreamer posted:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1520/en/sm/graphics.htm#wp1179839

Its best to just upgrade to the 8600GT while you're configuring your laptop.

 

buying it and upgrading it yourself later might very well become more costly than upgrading now with Dell. I think the only place you can possibly find a Dell 8600M GT card is on ebay.

 

And from Dell, of course.

 

Would love to get the 8600m gt, but really want a smaller laptop (14" or less or think and light 15.4"), so it looks like the 8400m gs is the best option.

These are the games I'd like to be able to play, would any of these not play at medium settings on the 8400m gs with at least 25fps?

Halo
KOTOR
Age of Mythology
Neverwinter Knights
Morrowind
Age of Empires III
Civilization IV
Sid Meier's Pirates
Dungeon Siege
Medieval Total War
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
Rise of Nations
C&C 3: Tiberium Wars
Rome:Total War
Medieval II: Total War

Thanks!

 

Almost all of those should play just fine... I would be slightly skeptical of getting 25 FPS on Medieval II and C&C 3, but I couldn't say for sure.

 

Which driver should I get for the 8400m gs?

 

I was under the impression that the reason the Inspiron 1420 didn't have a 8600 was because it couldn't handle the heat produced by a 128-bit GPU. Why is it that the Asus F8 is a 14 inch notebook that can house a 8600 while the Inspiron can't?

 

Anyone have first hand experience of Medieval 2 on a 8400GS?

 

That's an 8600m GS card that you're talking about, not the 8600m GT. They're quite different performance wise. The GT has 32 stream processors to the GS's 16, so it runs quite a bit hotter.

In my mind, the 8400 GS and GT are the 'same' card, while the 8600 GS really isn't much more powerful. The 8600m GT is a whole grade above any of them.

 

Any ideas on how Gears of War will run on the 8400m gs?

 

My guess: not very well... You'll probably want a bit more power to run the game well than the 8400 GS can offer. This is all speculation though.

 

This is untrue. The 8400M-GS is it's own card, unique in it's number of stream processors and it's memory bus width. The 8400M-GT and the 8600M-GS are the same card, as they both have 128-bit memory bus width and 16 stream processors. They differ only in clock speeds. The 8600M-GT and the 8700M-GT are a cut above them, with a full 32 stream processors with the 128-bit memory bus width. These two also differ in clock speeds.

 

You are right about the bus width.

However, they should all have 16 stream processors.

The core clock max speeds on the 8400m GS and the 8400m GT are 400 and 450Mhz respectively, while the 8600m GS has a max of 600Mhz.

The shader clock speeds on the 8400mGs and the 8400mGt are 800 and 900Mhz respectively, while the 8600m GS has 1200Mhz.

 

Yes, that's true. However in terms of chip design (correct me if I'm wrong here), the 8400M-GS is seperate from the 8400M-GT and the 8600M-GS. Clock speeds aren't a factor in chip design. It may be true that the core design of the 8400M-GS, 8400M-GT and 8600M-GS are the same, I'm not sure on that point.

 

Why not create an external Video Card? Wouldn't that be great. Buy a laptop with an integrated board, then plug in your high end card to get a boost. That would be sooo cool.

 

^Asus was doing something like that, but I don't think it will ever be released...

Here, the XG Station: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=127527

 

there are no external connection fast enough to properly power a mid-range or high end video card.
there are things like that XG station, but their performance are severely limited. and its a pretty dumb idea too actually, its fairly large, expensive and requires an external monitor. Its obviously not portable, so for that cost might as well buy/build a $600 desktop and have much better performance.

 

So you are saying that USB 2.0 is not fast enough to support the information exchange between the laptop and the video card? Seems like it could be.

 

you mean GPU?

USB2.0 or expresscard is no where near fast enough.

pci-e x16 bandwith is 8GB/s
USB 2.0 is 60MB/S

 

Sorry. I left for awhile....

@Odin:
you don't even have to argue that. your first statement was generally correct, because the bus speed is what limits the performance of the card (in most cases). I don't know much about the core similarities of the cards though, and I had been under the impression that they were practically identical cards (performance-wise).

I probably shouldn't have made my first statement as a fact, as I've only dealt with the 8400m GS. So, I'll respectfully bow out of the argument.

 

I wonder how a 8400M will handle Stranglehold... since I don't have a Xbox 360 or PS3, so PC is my only option... I played the 360 demo at a friend's house and it looks awesome, but as a PC gamer, I'd prefer keyboard & mouse

 

It would take rethinking motherboards, but they could make it where you have any externally accessible PCIe slot. But with GPUs and CPUs sharing stuff so frequently having them physically close makes a difference. That would change things up. Also the system would have to cope with the problem of not having an External video card - whlie it would be trivial to make a bios setting for it, in practice you can't just route entire buses like that.

Plus what incentive do laptop makers have for doing this? The laptop is a perfect reoccuring income for them, game card gets old and you have to buy another computer. Graphic card makers also don't want to do it, lucrative contracts with laptop makers keep them rich, and having too many choices could ruin that.

 

Does anyone know how well Call of Duty 2 plays on the Nvidia 8400M GS?